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Lisa Diane Marie Kudrow (born July 30, 1963) is an Emmy Award- and SAG-winning American actress, best known for her roles as Phoebe Buffay in the popular television sitcom Friends and as Valerie Cherish in the HBO series The Comeback, which she co-created and produced. While Lisa Kudrow has made her name portraying slightly ditsy, even flaky characters on the small screen, she has also proven to be a strong actress in features. While capable of projecting the quintessential "Valley girl" persona (in fact she was raised in the San Fernando Valley), this intelligent woman holds a degree in biology from Vassar. Although she had initially harbored dreams of a medical career (following in her father's wake), Kudrow turned to show business partly at the urging of her brother's friend Jon Lovitz. Lovitz encouraged her to audition for the famed L.A. improv group The Groundlings and while she did not make the cut on her first try, Kudrow was impressive enough to be referred to acting teacher Christine Szigeti. Eventually, the then-brunette actress was accepted as a member of the troupe where she honed her impeccable deadpan delivery and comic timing. Kudrow was born in Encino, California, the daughter of Nedra (née Stern), a travel agent, and Lee Kudrow, a headache specialist and physician. She was raised in an upper middle class Ashkenazi Jewish family and has an older sister, Helene Marla, and an older brother, neurologist David Kudrow. She is the niece of composer/conductor Harold Farberman. After having attended Portola Middle School in Tarzana, California, she went on to graduate from Taft High School in Woodland Hills, California, and then later received her B.S. from Vassar College in Biology in 1985. She also took guitar lessons as a child. Kudrow originally intended to follow in her father's footsteps - researching headaches. However, she was 'discovered' and began her career as an actress. Kudrow began her comedic career as a member of The Groundlings, joining the ranks of those such as Will Ferrell and Janeane Garofalo. Briefly, Lisa joined with Conan O'Brien and director Tim Hillman in the short-lived improv troupe Unexpected Company. She was also the only regular female member of The Transformers Comedy Troupe, a group directed by Stan Wells that currently plays at the Empty Stage Comedy Theatre. She played a role in an episode of Cheers opposite Woody Boyd. By 1989, Kudrow had begun to make inroads as a guest actor on TV sitcoms, beginning with an appearance as a dizzy acting classmate of bartender Woody (Woody Harrelson) in an episode of "Cheers". Kudrow nearly made her big screen debut in Sandra Locke's "Impulse" (1990) but her role ended on the proverbial cutting room floor. Her first released film was "The Unborn" (1991) and she subsequently appeared in a handful of largely forgettable features (e.g., "In the Heat of Passion" 1992). Kudrow landed her first important film role after her small screen success playing a pushy blind date to Albert Brooks in "Mother" (1996). The following year, "Clockwatchers" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and cast her as a promiscuous aspiring thespian working as an office temp alongside Parker Posey, Alanna Urbach and Toni Collette. Reprising a favorite stage role, she undertook a variation of her TV persona as half of a pair of underachievers who attend a class reunion in the uneven comedy "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion" (also 1997). Roles on other shows such as the final episode of "Newhart", "Coach" and a recurring part on "Bob" followed. The now bottle blonde Kudrow established her TV presence in the recurring role of the bumbling space cadet waitress Ursula on NBC's "Mad About You". After being fired from the role of radio producer Roz during the shooting of the pilot of "Frasier", she bounced back by landing the star-making part of Phoebe Buffay, the loopy would-be folksinger and twin to Ursula, on the NBC sitcom "Friends" (1994-2004). Over the course of the show's run, her character matured by seeking her birth mother and acting as surrogate mother to her brother. For her efforts, the actress received the Emmy Award as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1998 and earned additional nominations in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2001. She tried out for Saturday Night Live in 1990, but the show chose Julia Sweeney instead. She had a recurring role in Bob, Bob Newhart's third CBS outing, but her character was eliminated at the end of the first season. She was hired to play the role of Roz in Frasier, but the part was re-cast during the filming of the pilot episode because producers didn't think she was right for the part. However, one of the people working on Frasier also worked on Friends and suggested Lisa audition for the show. Her first major television role was Ursula Buffay, the eccentric waitress on Mad About You (this character would later appear in 'Friends' as Phoebe's twin sister). Despite the previous lack of success, this role led to her starring role on Friends as Phoebe Buffay, a role for which she won the 1998 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She played the character from 1994 until the show ended in 2004. The program was hugely successful and Kudrow, along with her co-stars, gained wide renown among television viewers. She was the most Emmy-nominated cast member of the show, totaling six nominations. Kudrow received a salary of one million dollars per episode for the last two seasons of Friends. According to the Guinness World Book of Records (2005), Kudrow (along with her female co-stars) became the highest paid TV actress of all time with her $1 million-per-episode paycheck for the tenth season of Friends. As "Friends" wound down to its final episode in 2004, Kudrow was perhaps the cast member best positioned to continue her career on the big screen in roles both comedic and dramatic. To the comedic end, she inked a pact with HBO and teamed with "Sex in the City" writer-producer Michael Patrick King to co-create "The Comeback" (2005 - ), a single camera, 30-minute comedy that cast Kudrow as Valerie Cherish, a neurotic, fading one-time sitcom star desperately hoping to revive her career with a new series while also having her return to primetime documented by a reality TV crew. Kudrow multi-tasked on the show as star, co-writer and producer and provided a knowing glimpse into fragile Hollywood egos, and the series had its admirers, though at times the character's self-centered, desperate bid to reclaim stardom was, however well observed, more painful than funny. On the dramatic--or at least seriocomic--end, she reteamed with writer-director Roos for the ensemble film "Happy Endings" (2005) to tackle a part written specifically for her: Mamie, a tightly controlled woman whose teen dalliance with her step-brother resulted in her giving away her child, only to be confronted by a young wannabe filmmaker who claims to know her son's identity and drawn into a elaborate scheme to obtain the information. Exploring her character's sometimes absurd course of self-discovery, Kudrow delivered another sharply etched performance. Her film credits include comedic roles in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Hanging Up, Marci X, Analyze This and its sequel Analyze That. However, Kudrow has also starred in dramatic roles including the biopic Wonderland about the late porn star John Holmes. She has garnered critical acclaim in mostly dramatic roles for writer-director Don Roos in the films The Opposite of Sex and Happy Endings. After 'Friends', Kudrow portrayed Valerie Cherish, the main character on the HBO original series The Comeback. The series premiered on HBO on June 5, 2005. She also served as co-creator, writer, and executive producer. The show, about a has-been sitcom star trying for a comeback, was not renewed for a second season. Kudrow received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on The Comeback, making her the first Friends cast member to receive a major award nomination since Friends ended. She has also been a voice over for the animated series Hercules, as Aphrodite. Her most recent work is in the movie adaptation of the bestselling novel, PS, I Love You alongside Hilary Swank, in which she plays a supporting role as Denise. Also, she was the voice of the female grizzly bear 'Ava' in the 2001 film sequel Dr. Dolittle 2, starring alongside Steve Zahn (voice) and Eddie Murphy. Kudrow is also in the upcoming movie Will, co-starring alongside Gaelan Connell, Vanessa Hudgens and others. She will be playing the role of Karen Burton, Will's mother. Shooting has started in Austin, Texas. Kudrow had a relationship with Conan O'Brien until he moved to New York to host his TV show beginning in 1993. On May 27, 1995, Lisa became the first "Friend" to marry when she wed Michel Stern, a French advertising executive. They have had one son, Julian Murray (born May 7, 1998). Lisa's pregnancy was written into Friends with her character Phoebe having triplets as a surrogate parent for her brother. Lisa is bilingual, she speaks English and French fluently. |
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